US20050021786 discloses an apparatus and method capable of efficiently and accurately constructing an access control configuration having high security. Only the MAC address of a controller (client) authorized by a user is authenticated and registered in a MAC address table of a device and the device performs MAC address filtering for permitting access by the controller (client) which is authenticated and registered in the MAC address table. This can pose problems when a network-compatible device is newly added to the home network.